We've got two incredible new books from McSweeney's in store this week.

Darin Strauss's Half A Life is a memoir about how, at eighteen, Strauss was involved in a car accident that resulted in the death of a cyclist and how that experience transformed his life (if this sounds familiar, cultureds, you may have heard Strauss on the Life After Death episode of This American Life.)

Adam Levin's The Instructions is big. Its girth alone makes me want to read it. And then there's press write-ups like this (from McSweeney's): "Combining the crackling voice of Philip Roth with the encyclopedic mind of David Foster Wallace, Adam Levin has shaped a world driven equally by moral fervor and slapstick comedy-- a novel that is muscular and rollicking, troubling and empathetic, monumental, breakneck, romantic, and unforgettable." I'm convinced.